This...is Erica.

Today is Erica's birthday. Erica is my roommate, and she's probably one of my best friends, especially down here in sunny Fairfax, Virginia. I figured with it being her birthday and all, I'll give her a little bit of a tribute or something. So, today you're going to learn a little bit about Erica and what makes her so special.

Erica has a special food allergy called Celiac disease. It's basically an allergy to gluten (i.e. wheat, flour, basically anything in that bottom row of the food pyramid that isn't rice). You may or may not have heard of it before. I know that before I came to college, I certainly had no idea what it was, and even more so, what I was getting into.

I drew her this lovely picture for our names on the suite door

It's not like a normal allergy where you would break out in hives or go into anaphylactic shock, and it's different for everyone who has it. Some people people go through life without ever experiencing any symptoms, while others can have very severe symptoms. Erica does get symptoms where if she accidentally eats something with gluten in it, she has pretty bad stomach pains and she feels sick. It's not deadly to have a single episode, but the way I exaggerate things, I always think she's going to die:

There's a lot about celiac that's still a mystery to doctors. They're not sure what causes it, but it can be genetic and passed on by parents to their children. Also, celiac is an autoimmune disease, meaning that it's a result of the body not being able to process something, and it attacks what it considers to be foreign matter and causes degenerative effects to the rest of the body. For example, Erica and I are the same height. She's short because of celiac, and I'm Ukranian. She also has joint problems sometimes. However, since she has symptoms she can make sure she's not harming her body any more without knowing it and she can stay healthy. :)

This whole year living with her has been a huge learning process for me. In the beginning it was a bit of a struggle for me; I had so much to learn and so much that I didn't understand. I never could've guessed how many different foods have gluten in them, even foods like feta and tomato sauce. But I'm glad that I could get to know about this and now I can even help her cook sometimes. I know that we can joke around about it now and she's totally cool with it. Sometimes I even chase her around with a bag of flour or threaten that I'm going to feed her flour while she's sleeping.

Ok, so I'm a little mean, but we know it's a joke and in the end we both end up laughing anyway.  I really wanted to post this, not just because it's Erica's birthday and all, but also because I want to help give you a little bit of extra knowledge today so that you won't be as clueless as I was when I met Erica. It's more common than I ever would've guessed, but hey, I was totally in the dark so maybe you are too. Nevertheless, I hope that maybe, if you ever come across someone with celiac, you can make their life just a little bit easier with some understanding.

I've also developed a personal theory that when you can't eat gluten you need to substitute other sugars into the body to compensate. Like, I have never seen anyone eat as much sugar as this girl. One morning I caught her spooning brown sugar straight into her mouth. Seriously, she has an unhealthy obsession with candy. But hey, that's her, and I couldn't love her any other way. :)

_sara